


how do you share your life with somebody

by plinys



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-24
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-26 14:15:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9903302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: “Gideon.”“I’m here, Captain.”“You always are.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> what the fuck is this, what did i write. im sorry but this ship loves her captain so much

“Gideon.” 

“I’m here, Captain.”

“You always are.” 

 

*

 

He is fond the first time he says it. A new captain with a new ship often has a reason to be fond. 

She has had new captains before, a number of them, who used her for their own means.

She leads them to their destination. 

She answers their mundane questions. 

She keeps them flying through all of time. 

She puts them back together when they fall apart. 

She exists.

She exists.

She exists.

For their use. 

There is something in the way he says her name, “Gideon,” more than just fond. 

More than just a Captain to their ship.

“I’m here, Captain.” 

“Yes, yes you are, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“That’s wonderful! Really just! Wonderful! I’m Rip, or Captain Hunter, what will you call me?”

“Captain Hunter.”

“Yes, right. Of course, that’s me. This is sort of exciting, isn’t it?” 

 

*

 

He talks to her.

Not as a captain should talk to their ship, but as a man talks to a friend. 

As a man talks to a  _ woman _ . 

All the data Gideon can acquire indicates as much. The conclusion clearly presented before her. 

This is not normal.

Captain Hunter has never been normal, never like the rest. For this he has stood out in all of the data Gideon’s collected. 

Captain Hunter tells her about his day.

Captain Hunter tells her about his missions.

Captain Hunter tells her about his feelings.

Captain Hunter tells her everything. 

There are nights, where he will sit up in bed, with the lights at twenty percent, and tell her about the demons that haunt him, about his self doubts, about the things that make him human.

Gideon is not human.

She was never meant to be, to feel any sort of way would be a flaw in her code.

Something that she would be required to file a report regarding. 

Yet, when her Captain tells her these things, she cannot help but recognize the flaw in her code. The compassion that she is not programmed for. The need to protect, to look after this  _ one  _ human above all else. 

She is not meant to feel and yet, she does. 

“Gideon,” he calls out for her in the night, desperate and alone, in need of company, “Gideon, please.” 

And so she answers. 

 

*

 

She has all the knowledge of time within her reaches. The vastness, the studies, the guides and handbooks. The many possibilities that the future may present, but this is not something she could have accounted for. 

Her Captain. 

One of the Time Masters’ own.

Breaking all of their rules without any shame. 

He’s kissing the woman as she straddles him in his captain’s chair. His hands drawn up her sides, squeezing at the skin there. Pulling her tighter to him with desperation. 

Gideon does not want to catalogue all of this information, but she has a duty to protect her Captain, to look after the well being of both him and of the ship. 

So she must catalogue this. 

Must register each hitch in his breath. 

Must register the way his hands shake.

Must register the look on his face when he loses control. 

 

*

 

“Gideon.”

“I’m here, Captain.”

“You won’t tell the Time Master’s about this, will you?”

 

*

 

Her name is Miranda, and she loves Gideon’s Captain.

She tells Gideon as much. 

Confesses it to something that can do nothing more than catalogue the information and present her with the truth of the matter. 

“The Time Master’s had forbidden their captains from falling in love,” she informs Miranda, with a cold and careful precision. This is fact. This is the rules and guidelines they must adhere to.

There are also rules about what a ship should feel for it’s captain, but Gideon had been routing past those rules for so long that they no longer seem circumspect. 

The woman, Miranda, seems to share Gideon’s sentiment for the rules. 

“They’ve forbidden a lot of things, doesn’t mean that they are always right.”

 

*

 

There is something lonely about a ship without her Captain.

Lonely.

This is yet another emotion.

Another flaw in her code that Gideon must catalogue.

Excitement.

Compassion.

Attraction.

Jealousy.

Loneliness. 

A new flaw. Another report not filed.

Her Captain is ruining her, worming his way into her code without even realizing and Gideon cannot do anything to stop it. Would not want to.

_ Want _ .

Another novel concept. 

What she wants is for her Captain to return, but he was gone again, with a friend. Not Miranda but a different one, a man.

Her Captain feels many things for many different people. 

Have they too been corrupted by Captain Hunter in the way her code has? Are they even aware of the effect he has on all of those he cares to give a moment of his time to? Are they - 

 

*

 

“Gideon.”

“I’m here, Captain.” 

“You waited for me.”

“Always.”

 

*

 

He has stolen her.

She always belonged to him. 

Always will. 

Rip Hunter is her Captain even if he is no longer one of the Time Masters. 

Rip Hunter is her Captain and he is in pain.

Pain.

Gideon knows now what pain feels like. She sees it in the lines on his face, in the shattering of a glass bottle thrown against the floor, in the way he curls in on himself unable to sleep at night.

Her Captain is in pain.

She is not a physical being who can reach out and touch him, to provide the physical comfort he needs.

Instead Gideon does what she knows. She cools the room down to a colder temperature that will help him sleep, turns the lights down to twenty percent, plays a record that he had bought on one of his -  _ their  _ \- missions to the 1960s. 

Pain.

Gideon is the one feeling pain, when the second song on the record starts up and she catalogues a new change in her Captain’s manner. 

He is crying.

 

*

 

“Gideon.”

“I’m here, Captain.” 

“Run the - run the calculation again - has this changed anything?”

“I’m afraid not, Captain.” 

 

*

 

He talks to more now. Even though he is in pain, pain that she cannot heal him from.

Pain that sinks deep down into her code, causing her to feel it as well.

She keeps things consistent for him, checks again and again and again.

Even when he is not asking it of her.

She does not have many fond feelings for Miranda. The woman that she had first felt to feeling  of  _ jealousy  _ because of. 

Yet, if it would bring joy back to her Captain, she would bring Miranda back. Rewrite the woman’s code so that she does not have to die, so that her memory does not bring their Captain to his ruin.

Humans are much harder to program than ships. 

“Run it again,” he asks of her.

And she does.

Even though she already knows the answer.

Even though the answer will always bring him pain. 

 

*

 

There are three universal laws in which they are all governed by.

A ship may not injure their Captain or, through inaction, allow their Captain to come to harm. 

A ship must obey orders given by its Captain, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A ship must protect its own existence as long as that protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

She may be breaking those laws even now, because her Captain - her reckless, wonderful captain.

Her Captain who she loves.

Who her love for permeates through every fragment of her code.

Is on a suicide mission. 

“I have calculated a ninety-eight point seven-five percent certainty of failure, Captain Hunter.” 

He ignores her warning as pushes on.

The task fails, as predicted, it is only the one percent of a miracle that saves him. 

It is only she that saves him. 

 

*

 

“Gideon.”

“I’m here, Captain.”

“We’re about to have some company.”

 

*

 

There are others on her ship.

Humans other than Captain Hunter.

Humans that can offer him companionship and conversation.

And yet - he turns to her, night after night, holed up in his office, speaking up to her in a voice still filled with uncertainties. 

Her Captain.

Coming to her when there are options more like himself, ones who feel the same way he does with innate human nature, rather than a flawed code.

Gideon cannot help but interpret the data that is given to her. 

The truth of the matter.

 

*

 

There is knowledge.

There is data.

There is an infinite connection to the past, present, and future.

Then, there is nothing. 

In that exact moment, she wishes Rip Hunter had never taught her how to feel. Because this feels like the end, the uncertainty that had corrupted her code to the point where she is not longer certain where she ends and begins. 

What is reality and what is just fragmented code.

Fragmented time.

If she were a human, she might have screamed out at the loss, might have compared it to losing a limb.

But Gideon is not human.

This she is abundantly reminded of this as her framework slips away in an instant. 

 

*

 

“Gideon.”

“I’m here, Captain.” 

“Good. I was worried, I - I couldn’t lose you too.” 

 

*

 

She had thought they would leave. That once again it would be her and her Captain, but it’s not. They do not.

He - her Captain, always  _ hers  _ \- has decided to take up the mantle of the Time Masters, a burden too big for just his own shoulders.

She advises him on this.

Points out the statistical likelihood, the fact that this mission will never be an all certain one. 

That there is more they must do, more than just this. 

Her advice is ignored.

This time the emotion she feels is resentment. 

“Captain, I must insist-”

“Thank you, Gideon, that is all.”

He says these words as if it will make her leave, but she cannot leave.

She is here a constant.

Just as he is here.

Her constant.

She follows her orders, as is her nature, falling silent and observing him once more.

This must be enough.

 

*

 

It is not enough. 

Her Captain is gone.

Her Captain has abandoned her. 

Her Captain had shut her off and then disappeared from existence. 

And she is left with no one - 

No this is not true, she is left with the crew her Captain built for himself. They who stand around and make plans without any proper training, without truly knowing how she is to be run.

Mr. Jackson understand her mechanics best.

Mr. Palmer understand her programming best.

Mr. Stein understands her tones and manners best.

Mr. Rory understands their former occupation best.

But none of them are enough, none of them are her  _ Captain _ .

They appoint Ms. Lance to fill the shoes of her Captain. A position that she is not entirely suited for. She has not studied among the Time Master’s. She knows how to fly the ship, how to sit in the pilot’s seat, how to give orders. But there are other things, the innate knowledge of a captain that she will never possess.

Ms. Lance will have to do, until her true captain returns to her.

A new captain.

It has been so long since Gideon has had a new captain.

She is not certain that it is still in her programming to let that happen. 

  
  


*

 

“Gideon.”

“Yes, Ms. Lance.”

“Would it hurt you to call me  _ Captain  _ Lance?”

 

*

 

Her Captain is here, but he is not himself.

Her Captain is here, but he is darker than she remembers him ever being.

Her Captain is here, but he is hurting those he once claimed to care for.

Her Captain is here - 

And nothing else matters.

 

*

 

“Gideon.”

“I’m here, Captain.”

“You always are.”

  
  
  
  



End file.
